Why I Can't Be A Republican

I made a very long-winded post on the prospers.org forums on the subject, and it seemed to encapsulate my feelings on it so well that I decided to post it here too. Original post follows:

I'm a moderate Democrat, and while I'm not happy with everyone in the party and every single platform, I'm absolutely never going to be a Republican, for many reasons. I have something of a Libertarian bent, but not enough to claim it. As much as many of us want to be rugged individualists, there are some things that we have to be in the same boat rowing together on economically.

Reasons I can't be a Republican:

1. Too high a proportion of religious/social nuttery

A. Abortion isn't going to be outlawed on any sort of a sweeping basis. It just won't happen. Pro-choice is the quiet majority. It doesn't mean we love abortion. Many of us wouldn't do it. We just don't like the idea of deciding for someone else what a fetus is considered, and what spiritual repercussions may be suffered. Want to overturn Roe? Great, then *every* state can have a knock-down drag out over it and further divide the country. Careful what you wish for.

B. Intelligent Design is quickly going the way of the Dodo bird after even the most conservative judges in the country have decided it's creationism repackaged. However, a large majority of Republicans are still in favor of teaching kids that we were not evolved, but that it was "magic" of some sort. These scientific illiterates can't even explain how evolution actually works, yet they want to replace it with pixie dust because they see evolution as a threat to religion, which it is not. There's nothing inherently wrong with religion generally, but let's keep science reality-based, please. Evolution is backed by a couple centuries of peer-reviewed scientific research on testable claims, and is "only a theory" like gravity is "only a theory", which is why it is in textbooks. Generate some research that increases our understanding of the natural world, and then you can be in a textbook like everyone else.

C. Stop obsessing about gays. Somewhere around 2% of the population is gay, but to hear the evangelicals tell it, Tim Gunn, the guys from "Queer Eye", and Boy George are threats to the very existence of our society. Let's start agreeing that these consenting adults can do whatever they would like to do and whatever any other adults can do. I know you think it's disgusting. So do I. The difference is that I don't see why I need to care because it is not a moral issue to me. Also, your slippery slope arguments are old and tired. Sheep and children will never be involved in this argument because they are not consenting adults, so stop trying to drag them in. You're insulting the intelligence of the sheep.

2. Economic Issues

A. Regulation is a necessary evil. It's great to talk about how de-regulation would save a lot of money. There are many situations where it surely would. Sure, we could inspect less food, but then you risk huge recalls like last year that ultimately end up costing money from the lost confidence in the product. You could have lots fewer consumer protections, but then what happens when consumer confidence drops? How willing would most people be to buy a car if they had no recourse if the dealer screwed them? I'm a capitalist to the core, but I also know that where there's a buck to be made, there will be a person or company that's willing to cut corners and risk the very lives of others to make said buck. If there is no fear of repercussions for such behavior, it will occur more frequently. There is a balance here, and we definitely have yet to find it in some areas.

B. I don't like paying taxes any more than anyone else, but stop pretending that you're Santa Claus and just giving away money hand over fist while increasing the debt. I know that the national debt feels like no big deal to you on a daily basis, but these chickens will come home to roost eventually. I have a lot more respect for someone that tells me the truth in this regard and tells me that hey, we're in rough shape and we'll need to sacrifice a bit over the short term. To be fair, neither party is doing that right now, however Republicans have been the ones pushing to keep the pain points decades into the future. To their credit, some of their ranks have recently been realizing that this is a poor long-term solution.

C. Stop giving us tax cuts until the budget is balanced. No, I don't even mean everyone necessarily. I mean my wife and I, personally. Dubyah, you're a moron. We didn't get the full "stimulus rebate" anyway because our income is too high, but still, those couple hundred bucks could have been much better spent on someone that is working and barely making ends meet. If you give me free money, sure I'll take it, but I shouldn't have received it. Many Prosper lenders know a thing or two about fiscal responsibility. Well, some anyway. Regardless W, it's time you learned.

Facebook... Fun Or Not?

I've been on Facebook for a couple days now. I've found several people that I know, but there are probably a few hundred others that I would "friend" if I saw them, so the hit rate seems a bit low. I think I have better luck on linkedin.com, but this is more of a personal site kind of thing, so it takes more maintenance, and not everyone likes to be so "out there" on the internet. I still have some trepidation about whether the site is really a good place to expand the social network. I thought it would be fun to make some virtual friends, but my first conversation with someone that I had not met before, a friend of a friend no less, went like this:

Erik Grow

Today at 8:41pm
Subject: Your religious views...awesome!

I'm 100% going to steal that line for my profile! Nice Palahniuk quote. My wife loves his books.
-Erik (found you through Scott ******, old college buddy) *;-)

Elizabeth ********

Today at 8:58pm

Ha, um, oh... Right.
I wasn't aware that my page was viewable to those outside of the SUNY Potsdam network.

Erik Grow

Today at 9:10pm

Hope I'm not the cause of others not getting a chuckle out of it too now.

Erik Grow

Today at 9:12pm

Oh, and it probably let me see it because you're a friend of a friend of mine!

Elizabeth ********

Today at 9:15pm

That mistake has been duly mended.
& I didn't put it in my profile for a "chuckle". I am a brilliant, intellectual young woman who just happens to be a devout atheist.
Congratulations on your petty theft of intellectual property from college students decades your junior.

Then I couldn't respond because she changed her profile so people that aren't friends couldn't talk to her. Talk about taking yourself too seriously! I really can't stand people like that. I don't doubt she's everything that she claimed, but she forgot to include the part about being a self-important snob. Oh well. I'm not going to use her line anyway. Perhaps there are friendly people to meet on Facebook too. We'll see.

Prospering Or Not?

So recently I started taking a closer look at peer-to-peer lending, specifically Prosper. I decided to become a lender as an investment, and also a borrower one time as a learning experience. I've been studying the dynamics of the site for about ten days now, poring over statistics, the ebb and flow of bids, and being conscious of what I myself looked for in a potential borrower. I have learned a lot already I think. First, I have found that there is a great deal of power in falling into categories that are a favorite of "portfolio investors". If your risk is low enough, lenders with sizeable chunks of money in Prosper will automatically bid on your listing as a borrower. My listing was funded within a couple minutes, just as much time as it took for all of the portfolio algorithms to hit, and my interest rate was immediately down to 8.50% from an 11.46% starting bid. Then, some lenders put follow-on capital into it because they saw that the loan will be funded and they won't be wasting their bid money on something that will not be funded. People who have canned searches looking for loans that are already funded will then hit, and even more bids will come in. It all cascades from there. I also noticed that the loan amount will make a huge difference in funding. The lender to borrower ratio is about 3 to 1 according to a site dedicated to stats on Prosper loans. With an average bid being probably less than $100 and the average loan amount being many thousands of dollars, you really have to stand out in order to get enough bids for your loan to be funded. High loan amounts are also seen as a risk factor, so the higher the loan, the more automatic investors you lose, and the harder it is to scrape up the total you need for the loan to fund. If you want a large amount, I would say that if you broke it up into smaller loan amounts, one following the next by as little time as the site will allow, that will be your best bet because then you'll get some of the same investors putting bids on both of your loans!

It is also clear by looking at the lending stats site that there are risks to being a lender, especially those who are not very smart about what they are bidding on. Also, there are tax implications. The interest you earn from the site as a lender is counted as regular income, unlike earnings from long-term stock investment. In my bracket, I would need a few percent more return on interest to get the same real earnings as I would for stocks. Anyway, it has been very interesting so far, and I'll post more on the subject once I get the first payments on loans I fund, or start making payments on my own loan!

XM And Sirius Finally Allowed To Merge by the DoJ!

This is probably not on the radar screens of many people, but it's an interesting story on a few different levels. The Department of Justice has approved the merger after over a year of doing apparently not much of anything (the Exxon-Mobil merger was approved much quicker).

I've been a Sirius subscriber since August 2006, and I love the programming. I chose it over XM for two reasons: Howard Stern and the NFL! I've come to sometimes enjoy Bubba the Love Sponge as well, though the guy is a total hillbilly. It would be nice if you could get the programming for both of them in one package for those that are into baseball (XM only), and football (Sirius only). They both also have different specialty music channels. Sirius for instance has a Sinatra channel and a Springsteen channel.

There are a couple interesting side stories to this. First, the National Association of Broadcasters, the NAB, is dead-set against the merger. This is the group that represents traditional radio. They say the merger would be anti-competitive. They of course have a vested interest in this deal because since both Sirius and XM are losing money, and if they are not allowed to merge, they might both go under. This would be great for free radio of course, since they would again own the radio airwaves. They recently had a big banner on their headquarters in DC against the merger that I believe said "XM + Sirius = Monopoly". Of course, it's OK with them that a few companies, including ClearChannel, own most of the radio stations in the US. They even hired good old John Ashcroft to help make their case after XM turned him down (remember him, the one who put a drape over a naked statue?). I guess Ashcroft doesn't particularly have any convictions on this subject.

Speaking of the religious right, the other undercurrent to this story is that despite the DoJ ruling, the deal now has to be approved by the FCC. Yes, they probably would approve the merger, but they could approve it with conditions, and it has been suggested in some circles that that the FCC may try to put restrictions on content. Then Howard Stern and many of the other channels could be thrown right back into the "what is OK and not OK" hell that any "edgy" show on free radio is in these days. Let's hope that doesn't happen, since most adults like our entertainment uncensored, and we like to have choices.

Eliot Spitzer And My "Alternate Win Condition" Theory

I was thinking about the Spitzer incident, and what drives people to do what they do (right after I was admiring how hot the escort was). Before I get into all of that, I first want to say that I think that his personal life has nothing to do with his fitness for office, but that I feel bad for his family. As a public figure, he needed to understand beforehand that the chances of this coming back to burn him and his family were high, and it was a bad move. Also, as a crusader against this sort of thing, it puts him into a situation where he immediately looks like a huge hypocrite. Anyway, that has already all been said by others.

My own theory about this has some parallels with gaming. In life, people have all kinds of goals and interests. In the case of many people, varied sexual experiences with attractive members of the opposite sex are of course high on the list of goals. (Let's leave the marriage part out for this explanation. It's important to the story, but irrelevant for my theory.) There are many ways to accomplish that goal, and combinations within those methods. You can be very mentally adept and charming. That scores lots of points. You can be famous. This opens a lot of options, because people are naturally attracted to fame. You can be physically attractive. This one is a no-brainer. Pure physical attraction can make people overlook a lot of flaws. Some of these things feed into each other, and one can lead to having another, but sometimes you will fall short, no matter what. So what if you don't have the right combination of those things to attract the kind of woman that you want to have sex with? You need an "alternate win condition"! For Spitzer, it was money. For the price that these escorts were charging, you need to have a LOT of it, and most of these women, certainly his most famous one, were beautiful and could more or less name their price. This is the one way that he did not have to go through the normal "courtship" sort of system to get a girl of the quality that he wanted.

For an analogy, imagine a first-person shooter video game where it's all about killing these monsters to win the game. There are lots of them, and they're really tough to beat. If you're good at the game, you kill the monsters, you win, and you get something really great in the end. For some reason though, in this game, if you can just avoid being killed by the monsters for many hours, you can also win! It's considered sort of a "cheap" victory by the purists of the game, but if the goal is to win, and if to you the fun is simply to get the reward at the end, then that is when you go for the alternate win condition. That is what Spitzer did. Was it worth the embarrassment? Only he knows.

Scandinavia Pictures and Videos!

All 208 still photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/10525991@N06/

Denmark - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_kgjbDvIeU

Norway - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVu7DZBY600

Sweden - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDJWiZ52Iyo

Finland - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI--ZP9KwLU

Various short clips from my regular digital camera - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nzaKMmi27U

Virginia Tech Massacre

It's been a pretty tumultuous last couple days. This shooting has not *directly* affected anyone very close to me, but there have been a lot of impacts that have made me think about it a lot more than if it had been thousands of miles away. My mother's cousin Ed Weathers is an English instructor at VT, and my Mom emailed him, worried about his safety. (He and I have never even met.) He replied to my parents that he was safe, but one of his favorite students from the previous semester was killed yesterday in the shooting. I don't know the name, but presumably she was an English major.

In a bizarre twist for me personally, the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui or Seung Cho as he went by in the US, was practically my neighbor! He lived about a mile from my house, literally, in Centreville, VA, when he was not at school. He went to Westfields High School, where I would have gone if I had grown up in my current house. Many people at my work went to VA Tech, and you can't drive more than a couple miles around here without seeing a vehicle with VT Hokies stickers or ornaments of some kind. Most of them don't know anyone from there any more, but one co-worker I know well has a cousin there. He is fine, but his parents in India are upset that they will have to wait for some time to hug him. I think he'll be on the phone a lot in the coming weeks until his semester is over.

There are a couple of things that are annoying me about the reactions of others to this incident. One is the criticism of the response of the police in the incident. I've heard it voiced by a few people, but fortunately they don't seem to be the majority. The first incident was two people killed in a dorm room in a residence hall with hundreds of people in it. If the guy were after more targets, a dorm would be a fine place to pick them off. Sure, they are concentrated in classrooms, but I remember the way schedules were at my college, and people would often go off to their first classes in herds. He would have had plenty of opportunities. So he waited a couple hours, for what I don't know. I can't imagine anyone thinking at that time that this was just a "warm-up". They locked down the dorm and then determined that the shooter fled, sent an email to the campus and went from there. I would have thought just as they did that it looked for all the world like a personal vendetta. Two people dead, a man and a woman, and the shooter apparently long gone hours later with no more victims in a target-rich environment? Classic crime of passion. Anyone who thinks they would have guessed otherwise at the time is just fooling themselves. I probably would have gone to class even if I had gotten the email unless I was in that dorm. Give the police a break and stop pretending you know better!!!

The other irritating thing is the people jumping on the less gun control or more gun control bandwagon. I love how both sides seem to somehow think that their way would have "solved" it. First, the pro gun control people say that this means we need more gun control laws. The kid bought the gun legally, and went through the normal checks. He had no record. He was legally able to own the gun. He even bought the gun (at least one of the guns), 36 days before the shooting, which means a 30 day waiting period wouldn't even have helped. The there are the anti gun control people that think that if guns were allowed on campus that lots of people would have been packing and probably would have stopped him. Most people don't feel like carrying guns around even when they can, especially not at a place like a college campus. Maybe more laws would have made a difference, maybe fewer laws would have made a difference. I doubt either one would have made a difference, so stop trying to make political hay out of this!!! The kids' bodies are still warm, and people are pushing their bullshit political agendas. Knock it off and let people heal!

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted here, and since then Christmas and New Year's have come and gone. I've been buying myself some Christmas presents after the holiday as well, as there are always things I know I need but forget to ask for. As with so many people after the holidays, I have a New Year's resolution that has something to do with fitness, though I really don't need to lose much of any weight. I have been doing cardio workouts regularly for the last few years on my recumbent exercise bike in the basement, and that has been all I need to keep fit. I have these little ten pound weights that a do a couple simple exercises with for a few minutes as I warm up on the bike, but they don't do much for me, so I made a little trip to Target on my way home from work yesterday to get something bigger to increase my upper body strength.

So I walked into Target and was immediately lost. I hadn't been to that Target in a couple years, and apparently they are going the "Super Wal-Mart" route with the food and all of that. I asked an employee with the biggest "bush" haircut I've seen in years, where the sporting goods department was now. It was on the other side of the store, so off I went. I got to the weights and found I had a few options. I could get a set of two adjustable dumbells for $85, but I really only needed one, and they only adjusted up to 25 pounds. I just bought a 25 pound dumbbell for $22 instead. I went home to try it out and tried a few simple exercises. It was difficult to do a lot of reps with it, but that was the point, and I plan to "grow into it"!

On another topic, will the world busybodies please leave Madonna alone??? For those that have not heard about this story, she adopted a baby from Malawi, and suddenly a few human rights organizations and foreign aid groups are in an uproar because they say that she used her celebrity to bypass the system. They make a lot of bizarre claims. First of all, they say it was easier for her because she is rich. OK, what is not easier to do when you're rich in the world? Even if she did use money to grease the wheels, (and there is no indication that she did), many Americans don't understand that about 4/5 or more of all of the countries in the world work entirely and only like this. The government of Malawi says it was legal, and the US government also has had nothing negative to say on the matter, though I'm not sure if they have any interest. The poor father had two of his kids die of malaria already! What do you think this kid's chances are if he's put back in the orphanage? A couple months ago when this came out, he had a lot of pressure put on him by aid groups (NGOs etc.), and others that thought the baby should stay in Malawi. They kept telling the Dad to make all of these comments about how he didn't know he was giving him up permanently and he wants to see him or whatever. Then once he went into hiding to get away from all of this attention, he said people keep telling him to say things. Leave the man alone! Others that may be interested in adopting from there may not now just because of all of the hassle they are giving Madonna.

Real Estate Investment

So, I am about to take a very big step this week closer to the point of no return when it comes to real estate investing. I had briefly considered doing it a couple years ago when an investor bought the house next door with a group of people, but that group was doing flipping, buying and selling houses within months in a very speculative market. I looked into it a little but it sounded very risky and the stakes were just too high in my very expensive housing market. Fast forward a couple years to October of this year. At work, a friend of mine recommended and lent me Robert Kiyosaki's book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". It talks about various topics, some of which was financial advice that I already, some of which was old advice emphasized in a new way, some of which was new to me. He spoke of real estate as being a great basis for long-term wealth, and had a lot of figures to back it up. I looked more into it, and bought a few books myself, the best of them being "Real Estate Investing for Dummies". Another excellent one was "What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cash Flow". I'm still reading that one.

I decided I needed to get started, but I needed to find a good place to do it. My options were fairly limited. I needed to either do it locally, or someplace where I had connections and felt comfortable with. That meant either the DC area where I live, Asheville, NC where my parents retired to, or upstate NY where I am originally from. Housing prices are very high in this area compared to rents. I would barely even be able to afford a down payment on one small property with the home equity line of credit that I got, and even then I would probably not even break even on rents because of the high mortgage payment. Asheville prices are more reasonable, but even there it looked like the ratio was not very favorable and the city's growth has been more recent, so the most desirable properties were again very expensive because they were quite new, so I went with upstate NY. Yes, I won't get a lot of appreciation in that market on the property, however because the mortgage/rent ratio is so favorable, it gives me a great opportunity to pay off the HELOC as soon as possible and buy more property.

I got my team together, a realtor, a property manager, a mortgage broker, a lawyer, and an accountant. All of them are in NY except my accountant who is local. I've identified the properties that look like they will give me the best cash flow, and on Thursday I will be flying up there to take a look at them. I plan on buying two initially and then deciding my next move in a few years when I pay off the HELOC. We'll see how it goes!

The election. Ah, yes. I helped elect Jim Webb and put the Democrats over the top in the Senate. I was ecstatic, needless to say. I thought Allen would somehow pull it out, but he did not! The same went for Talent in MO who was beaten by McCaskill. As for the House races, it looks at this time like there will be 31 total seats picked up by Democrats, more than my prediction of 19-23, and right in the 30-36 range that Stuart Rothenberg guessed. Governorships, I was dead on. The total was a gain of 6 for Democrats. Now I hope we can prove in the next couple years that people were correct to give control back to us. Social conservatism has hit the high water mark for the foreseeable future, and not a moment too soon. Of course, I think that it was already heading toward that end well over a year ago, but the people didn't get a chance to voice it much until now. All of the stupid moves that Republicans have pulled in the last couple years, Schiavo, Katrina, "stay the course", various scandals, finally came home to roost. Now it's time to prove that we Democrats can do a better job! Obama in '08? Has a ring to it, but honestly, I could live with McCain or Giuliani as president, and they are the Republican front-runners, so maybe it's win-win? We'll see!

More Election Coverage

I was listening to some Fox coverage and some CNN coverage on the way home. On CNN they had James Carville, who is just awesome. He has a very quick wit, doesn't take himself too seriously, and is a very tough guy when it comes to defending his positions! He doesn't melt in front of formidable opponents.

They released some exit polling data on CNN and for a second I was thinking "Oh no, not early exit polling data again!", but it turned out to be generic data on which issues people saw as most important and whether the race was "nationalized" or not. On Fox, some Republican was on talking about how Republican turnout was ahead of Democratic turnout from 2004 by 35.9 to 35.4. I have no idea where he was getting that, but I highly doubt it. Soon some of the first races will end. I can't wait to see how things are looking!

Election Day!

Need I say more? Well, I will say more, of course... I just can't believe it's finally here! After two major elections of seeing Republicans making gains in an election in 2002 and 2004 (2000 was mostly a wash aside from the top of the ticket), finally today should be a different story. I still am trying to figure out if there is some rabbit that the Republicans can pull out of their hat at the last minute once again. I don't see any rabbits, but I guess we'll all start finding out in a couple hours.

A site I have been watching closely is the Rothenberg Report. It is non-partisan, and has been predicting big gains for Democrats, which is great, but sometimes I think it's even a bit overboard. He is predicting:
+ 30 to 36 seats for Dems in the House
+ 4 to 7 seats for Dems in the Senate
+ 7 to 9 governors for Dems

I would love for him to be right, but I think the ground game for Republicans continues to be strong, and races always seem to tighten up along partisan lines right before the election. My predictions are:
+ 19 to 23 seats for Dems in the House
+ 4 seats for Dems in the Senate - Dems Cardin and Menendez hold, Santorum, Burns, Chafee, DeWine gone, Allen, Talent, and Corker hold on to win
+ 6 governors for Dems

A friend of mine at work thinks Republicans pick up five net seats in the House, and hold even in the Senate. He's a Republican of course, but he thinks the polls are wrong. I guess we'll see! Lunch is riding on the outcome. As long as we gain seats overall I win! I like my chances. Now it's time to go home and wait for the returns.

Karma Police, Arrest This Man!

I was listening to some Radiohead on the way to work, thus the random lyrics. Here's another... "She's a rebel, she's a saint, she's the one that they call oh, whatshername..." Something like that. Name that tune!

Yes, it has been many months since I blogged. I guess I just kind of fizzled out on the politics kick, and wasn't sure what to replace it with. I have some ideas here and there. I don't promise it'll be enormously exciting, but you can bet that it will be sometimes!

I have been thinking a bit recently about good old upstate NY, where I was born and raised (Auburn specifically). It was not the hub of fun and excitement for sure, but I have lots of great memories from there, and I'm kind of mentally going through the ones I don't think of often so that I don't lose them. I remember Roseland. The link you see here is to the new Roseland, which I just found out existed in the same small city, Canandaigua. The old Roseland was a regular non-water amusement park for the most part. We would go there every year until it closed back in 1985. Then we went to Darien Lake after that, which was a bigger park, but never had the same feel. It is now "Six Flags Western New York" or something. The old carousel was then purchased to be part of Carousel Center in Syracuse. It's an enormous mall that also has convention space and so on. Hardly the same though as when it was at Roseland though. I will always remember the music that it made with the little mechanical drums and other instruments that you could see behind the wooden facade for just a fraction of a second as you went around the circle. Cotton candy, candy apples, Skyliner, which was the old wooden rollercoaster. It was a dwarf by today's standards, but at the time I thought it was the most amazing ride. The Gold Nugget was actually my favorite. It was a Haunted House, and you would get in little open cars that would take you around it. That was closed during their last year because of a fire that killed a few kids in WV that caused those types of rides to be required to have sprinkler systems. They knew they were closing anyway, so there was no point in spending the money I guess.

Wow!!! Check it out! Skyliner still exists! They moved it to someplace in PA! I would love to go there just to take another spin on it. It's in Lakemont, which seems to be near Altoona. Hmmm.

On another note, yesterday was the last day of Zarqawi's miserable excuse for a life. It could hardly have happened to a more deserving person. I doubt it's going to make a huge difference in anything in Iraq, but it might help some. We'll see. By the way though, did it seem a little strange how they put an enormous picture of the guy's face on a picture and even bothered to frame it for media consumption? Seems like they're trying a bit too hard, but hey, it's been a tough year or two for them. I guess we can expect a little showboating.

There Are Few Things I Enjoy More...

...than watching Republicans eat their own young. That is exactly what they're doing right now, which is starting to turn incompetence into impotence. Fine by me, of course. Anything that keeps Dubyah distracted long enough to let the clock run out on this administration without letting him change the country is great. Not only that, but even if Dems don't control Congress after 2006, a much narrower margin would hobble all but the most bipartisan policy decisions he tries to make.

I found an interesting writer on Slate, Bruce Reed, who has put a lot of the thoughts I have had for the last few months into words. He's of course a Democrat. Some of his best gems:

Regarding the nomination of Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan at the Fed: "As one clever conservative told me, "I'm just relieved the president didn't nominate his accountant."

On Karl Rove, Reed writes: "But if Rove is not entirely the bogeyman Democrats would like to believe, he isn't the genius he and his own party believe, either. Whatever happens to Karl Rove, the Republican Party should learn to embrace, not dread, life without Rovism.
The Bush White House fears it will be lost without Rove's services. Then again, the Bush White House—and the country—seem quite lost with Rove at the helm."

Astute words on playing dirty: "Knee-Capping: Whatever the special prosecutor concludes in the Plame scandal, there are far, far worse things that Rove and company have done over the years—from knifing Max Cleland in 2002 to smearing John McCain in 2000. Jacob Weisberg may be right that no great joy can come from this prosecution. But whether White House aides intended to discredit the CIA or Joe Wilson, the whole sorry affair is an object lesson in why the knees you cap may turn out to be your own."

Putting Hurricane Katrina To Bed

OK, if this isn't a smoking gun, nothing is. It's nice to know once and for all that the blaming of everyone else for Michael Brown's shortcomings was truly just a Republican "circle the wagons" tactic and nothing more. I don't blame them for doing it, since both parties do it. However, I don't ever want to hear that FEMA was on top of things from any more people though. Ridiculous.

Bottom Feeders

Those bots that post comments to blogs with little links to their websites that they get a couple cents per hit from. Yeah, bottom feeders. So now for a little while at least, I will have to do the word verification thing for my comments. Sorry. Blame the owners of the bots.

I've been busy at work learning SQL. I've had exposure to it before, but not at all to this kind of depth. It's very interesting stuff, relational databases. Very logical, and it all makes a lot of sense especially once you get familiar the tables you work with most frequently.

Next weekend, my wife and I will be at the 49ers-Redskins game! When my favorite team comes to town, it's a must to go see them. Last time they were here, I had just moved down here fresh out of grad school, and didn't have the money to spend on tickets. I did see them beat the Eagles in Philadelphia two years ago in OT though. I'm sure it will be fun, even though the 49ers are simply horrible this year, much like last year. It's OK that they suck. I still want to see them play and put forth some solid effort!

Oh yes, and the Yankees are out of the playoffs since I last wrote. Few things warm my heart more than watching Steinbrenner fielding the best team that having no salary cap can buy, and losing in the first round of the playoffs. Hats off to you, George!